fighting goalie time!

if I haven't said this already, the three most beautiful words in hockey are "Stanley Cup Winners." and the two most beautiful are "goalie fight." I posted a good junior hockey one recently, where the goalies fought, along with everyone else, in a line brawl.

then at Puck Daddy today, a fight was posted of goaltenders Steve Summerhays of the Green Bay Gamblers and Nick Pisellini of the Chicago Steel (USHL, American junior hockey). they got penalties and game ejections (and have since received multi-game suspensions). what makes this unusual is that it happened just before the shootout, so their backups had to take over. (if only fans could fight to get out of seeing a shootout...) yes, I'd call it a staged fight, based on the fact that these two have battled before, and are friends off the ice. so this brought out complaints from both hockey fans and trolls in the comments that it makes hockey look bad or whatever. but still, worth a look. warning: shirtless goalie footage!



and last night, in the much-hyped SCF rematch Penguins @ Red Wings game (which I was very tempted to go to, since I could easily find seats for under $50. it's been a long, long time since you could get seats that cheap for the Blackhawks vs the lowliest opponents), right after the Wings won 3-1 and some kind of unpleasantries were going on (I didn't watch this closely enough to judge who's right and wrong here. surely you can find it being argued in agonizing detail at Kukla's Korner, Puck Daddy, etc.), Wings goalie Jimmy Howard got feisty (mercifully, the YouTube link disabled commenting):



ha: "in a city that traditionally has liked fighting goaltenders, Jimmy Howard has joined the list." screenshots from when I watched live:

and of course, now there's this. I didn't join but a FB friend did. I'm not anti-Crosby, just pro-goalies punching people (if provoked).

in an uncertain world...

...it's nice to know there are some things you can count on:

all screenshots taken during a very busy night of watching hockey online, 11/28/09. the hat trick was of course Crosby (for an eventual 8-3 defeat of the Rangers, on Fleury's birthday, too!)--wow, all that hat-picking-up really takes up time in a game. bonus cliche--a feature during a Penguins game where they show cute pictures with the Stanley Cup, which I'm sure no one is tired of seeing, unless they're a fan of any of the other 29 teams:

last night also featured shootouts in 6 of the 13 games. in fact, I watched three different games where the home team led 3-2, then the visiting team tied it with less than a minute left in the third period, then no one scored in OT, and it went to SO. (even eerier, two of these, Senators @ Bruins and Capitals @ Canadiens, were virtually at the same time) visitors won two (Caps, and Red Wings @ Blues), but fortunately the Bruins won theirs.

now, I can't say I wanted the Wings to win, of course, but I was getting worried for the mental health of the Wings bloggers I read. the team was on their longest scoreless streak since 1977, so many of these bloggers probably hadn't seen them do that badly in their lifetime...

wait, haven't there been Hawks games recently too? yes, yes, that'll be a separate post. (as will a special one-month-of-a-little-chippy! post tonight. time to get more chai, or whiskey)

yes, it’s a fight…

...by Sidney Crosby. instead of the requisite Halloween festivities for adults my age (dressing up in “slutty” costumes/ogling those in slutty costumes) I stayed in on a cold night with a frozen supreme pizza (yeah, so I ate the whole thing tonight, but not in one sitting!) and the internet and the (rain-delayed) World Series, except I couldn’t find an online feed and my TV was in the other room, so I only watched hockey. suspenseful Leafs @ Habs game (would have preferred the Leafs to win, but at least they [finally?] scored first, and wrecked the Canadiens’ comfortable lead late in the game, as Montreal fans were singing a goodbye song—ha!). and I figured I might as well take a look at the Wild @ Penguins game, and…FIGHT!

…I thought I could use my extra hour for daylight savings tonight to watch the video of Crosby’s (relatively minor, but still—it’s Crosby) beatdown of Marek Zidlicky, and the rest of Crosby’s entire NHL fighting career. okay, that still left 57 minutes. plenty of time to reheat the pizza and wait for my bottle of Great Lakes Brewing’s “Edmund Fitzgerald” beer to cool. turns out this was Sid’s 4th fighting major (the others were 12/20/07, 1/3/09, 4/5/09, thx hockeyfights.com!).

should you need to see it for yourself, it’s right here. I don’t know if the Pittsburgh crowd considered that a “treat” tonight, but it’s a hell of a lot rarer than just seeing the Pens winning. which, btw, they didn’t, so congrats to the Minnesota Wild for their first road win of the season (and against the current Stanley Cup champions, of course). now they won’t tie the 0-9 road start of the Ottawa Senators in 1992-9OH MY GOD, LOOK, RIGHT HERE is where you see me give up having any hope of a social life ever again. well, hope all of you who “went out” and “had fun” and “talked to people” enjoyed it!